Vietnamese Salad Rolls
Oh salad rolls! You are one of my favourite foods. And the best part about you? I can make you taste more fresh and delicious than even the most popular of Vietnamese restaurants. Why is that? Because very few make them to order — and you’ll often find restaurants will have a few batches sitting in the fridge for hours and hours! What happens when they aren’t fresh is the rice paper wrap starts to lose its moistness and gets stiffer and more wrinkly. Definitely still delicious and edible — but not nearly as soft and luscious as a freshly made roll! That being said? It’s not as bad as it sounds, and once you enjoy the fresh ones, the leftovers do indeed make the most amazing addition to tomorrow’s lunch!
I started my love affair with these salad rolls back during my University days. It wasn’t until the pandemic that I decided to learn how to make them myself, though! The pandemic caused a lot of home remedies to occur — home remedies for the lack of salad rolls, the lack of waxing salons, the lack of my favourite bakeries….
These things had to be fixed, and as the very resourceful woman I am — I fixed them!
Below is my very rugged recipe for the most delicious salad rolls. If you don’t like cilantro, feel free to drop it — but personally I think it adds a level of freshness to things!
Recipe for the Rolls
Ingredients:
rice paper rounds (made for spring rolls/salad rolls)
rice vermicelli
pickled carrots
iceberg lettuce OR beansprouts
cooked, shelled, deveined and thawed shrimp
fresh mint
fresh cilantro
Tools:
a shallow, wide pot (large enough to fit a rice paper round)
sharp knives for cutting the pickled carrots and shrimp
plenty of bowls and plates to hold all your ingredients individually — it’s kind of like preparing tacos, everything needs its spot!
a sieve or colander
Method:
Prepare everything first. That means:
de-tail the shrimp and slice it in half (bisectional, so they are the same size and shape)
boil the rice vermicelli for 2 minutes, then strain it out once it is soft, and run cold water over it while it’s in the sieve or colander. It’s ready to use now.
slice the iceberg lettuce into strips
slice the pickled carrots julienne style, or use a grater if you have one that will work
pull the leaves off of the mint and cilantro so they are ready to use
fill the shallow pot with lukewarm or cold water (the one that is big enough to fit the rice paper rounds)
Once you’ve done all the above, and it is ready to go, this is what you do:
take a rice paper round and dunk it in the shallow pot of water for about 5 seconds.
take the moistened rice paper round and put it on your preparation plate
in the center, lay out three shrimp pieces. Think of it as a line, and we are going to add things on top of this line of shrimp.
add your carrots, mint, cilantro, and lettuce on top of the shrimp (do so sparingly, or it will be too full)
take a handful of the rice noodles and drape it over top of your ‘pile’ of shrimp and things.
grab the edge of the rice paper round closest to you, and pull it over top of your mound of ingredients so that it is covered. Do a quarter roll so you ‘tuck it in’, like a burrito!
fold the left and right sides towards the center. It is sticky and everything will adhere.
roll the roll!
It may take some practice to keep things tight, and you will find a ratio of ingredients that suits you. But this will help you get to making salad rolls in no time! Of course for the sauce, you can use straight up hoisin sauce if you like, or sweet chili sauce even — but I prefer the traditional peanut sauce! The peanut sauce itself is a bit of an art, and I can dedicate an entire other blog post to it.
Things to avoid:
don’t oversoak your rice paper rounds or they WILL tear. Maybe not right away, but later on you’ll wonder why there is a slit down the middle…. trust! Only 5 seconds required.
Have everything prepared beforehand so you can get all the rolls done in one go!
don’t let them get too wet if they are being leftovers! Store in the fridge with some paper towel inserted to help absorb moisture. They may stick to one another but if they aren’t overly wet, they won’t tear.
Happy salad rolling!!!
